Showing results by narrator "David Stifel" in All Categories

Deep within the volcanic rock of Mt. Kilamanjaro lie the Catacombs, the enormous hidden burial caves of a vanished African society more sophisticated and technologically advanced than ours. A civilization that has left the formula for present-day domination by a world power etched into blood-red diamonds - the rarest gemstones known.

According to legend, the Pyncheon family has been cursed by their 17th century ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who stole the land from Matthew Maule. Maule was later put to death after being accused of witchcraft and the deed for the land could not be found. Now living in the New England mansion fraught with haunted miseries of the past, Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a small shop to pull herself from the poverty-striken curse she has lived under while her brother, Clifford, was serving a decades-long prison sentence for murder.

Following the death of his beloved mother, young Skinner Cade discovers he was adopted. Determined to find his true origins, he travels westward from the Mississippi Delta to the deserts of Arizona. There, Skinner learns of Changing Woman, the mysterious leader of the Coyotero who might be his biological mother.

Spoon River Anthology is a collection of poems that describe life - and death - in a small town. Each poem is a monologue delivered by a resident of Spoon River, describing events in their lives, and the circumstances that led to their occasionally untimely end. Edgar Lee Masters wrote this theatrical masterpiece to highlight the typical small town. The fascinating characters and realistic imagery make it easy to see why this is an American classic.

Humans versus Nature tells a history of the global environment from the Stone Age to the present, emphasizing the adversarial relationship between the human and natural worlds. Nature is cast as an active protagonist rather than a mere backdrop or victim of human malfeasance. Daniel R. Headrick shows how environmental changes - epidemics, climate shocks, and volcanic eruptions - have molded human societies and cultures, sometimes overwhelming them.

Herschel Cobb's moving account of his relationship with his legendary grandfather reveals a side of Ty Cobb that few people ever saw, that of loving nurturer. A baseball icon and arguably the best player who ever lived, Ty Cobb's infamously cold, competitive nature allowed him to excel on the ball field but undermined his relationship with his children. Devastated by the untimely death of two of his sons, Cobb relished the opportunity to reconnect the broken family ties when young Herschel and his siblings visited him during the summers.

Laurence's quiet life in Seattle is shaken and stirred when 70-year-old Eva sweeps him off his 76-year-old feet. He's a retired Boeing engineer who likes to read and cook. She's a powerhouse CEO who suggests shocking ideas about sex, love, and marriage. Romance is exciting at every age, but can this unlikely couple create a future together? Drew's gallery is struggling through the Great Recession. He risks his finances and reputation to try to save it with a unique Basque art exhibit.

Some say business strategy is 50 percent art and 50 percent science. The truth is probably closer to 65 percent art and 35 percent science, but the science of strategy remains critical. While art must be developed from within, science can be taught - and it forms the foundation of any business strategy. In The Strategy Mindset, strategy consultant, author, and internationally renowned speaker, Dr. Chuck Bamford, provides a simple yet practical guide to creating corporate strategy using well researched and battle-tested approaches.

The so-called "Bad Quarto" of Shakespeare's Hamlet is the first known version of this world-famous tragedy. Published in 1603, this text is significantly shorter, has some divergent character names, and contains different renditions of some of the play's most famous lines. Some scholars believe that the Bad Quarto is a pirated edition, written down by one or more of the company actors, while others think that it is Shakespeare's first attempt that he later revised and expanded.

Written in 1915, Beyond Thirty is a fascinating tale of the future after World War I as seen from 1915 - as the carnage and slaughter on the fields of France stunned the world, and men of good will all wondered where civilization was headed. For Edgar Rice Burroughs, "The Great War" results in a two century division between the eastern and western hemispheres. Inhabitants of Pan-America are forbidden to cross the 30th parallel. Europe and the Old World are forever cut off from America.

For 10 years Bill Stokes was a roving reporter and columnist for the Milwaukee Journal. He has written reams of material about his vivid impressions of people, animals, events, personal activities, and "things in general". Bill Stokes obviously enjoys his role as Wisconsin's favorite journalist. In this delightful book he shares that fun with all.

In the 1980s, physicists at a lab in the Soviet Union find traces of strange data in the cosmic background radiation. Because powerful forces in the military believe these findings can be turned into a weapon for use in the cold war, the information gleaned by the physicists is kept under strictest secrecy. The scientists are limited to primitive 1980s technology, but what they find has roots in much, much older times. They finally try an experiment that they hope will win the world over for communism.

John Potts Slough, the Union commander at the Battle of Glorieta Pass, lived a life of relentless pursuit for success that entangled him in the turbulent events of mid-nineteenth-century America. As a politician, Slough fought abolitionists in the Ohio legislature and during Kansas Territory's fourth and final constitutional convention. He organized the 1st Colorado Volunteer Infantry after the Civil War broke out, eventually leading his men against Confederate forces at the pivotal engagement at Glorieta Pass.

Rosamond Frankland has married the love of her life, Leonard, who is blind. They have bought Porthgenna Tower, the manor where Rosamond grew up and where her mother died 20 years earlier. What they don't know is the dark secret that hovers over her family, that house, and the stories about a woman's ghost that haunts the north rooms. Is this a ghost story, a love story, a story with a tragic ending, or a lovely one?

I am not going to complain to you about my life. We’ve got zombies. They are not the brainless, rotting creatures we’d been led to expect. Unfortunately for us, they’re just as smart as they were before they died, very fast, much stronger than you or me, and possess no internal editor at all. Claws. Did I mention claws? I kill them for a living, but it’s as much a vocation as a freelance career choice. It helps me, helps my neighborhood, and the people I consider to be my family of choice. What’s more?

Performed by David Stifel, Out of Time's Abyss is the sequel to The Land That Time Forgot and The People That Time Forgot, and continues the lost world saga begun in the earlier stories. Burroughs completes the revelation of his lost world's unique biological system, hinted at in the previous installment, in which the slow progress of evolution in the world outside is recapitulated as a matter of individual metamorphosis.

Since his wife's death at sea, San Francisco Police Detective Michael O'Higgins has been paralyzed by grief and shame. Almost a year after his wife's death, O'Higgins takes a ferry ride as part of his therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder. On the boat, he meets a charming Indian family: successful young husband, two lovely daughters, and a kind, beautiful wife and mother.

The People That Time Forgot is a novel by Edgar Rice Burroughs masterfully narrated by David Stifel. The novel begins with the organization of an expedition to rescue Bowen J. Tyler, Lys La Rue, and the other castaways marooned on the large Antarctic island of Caprona, whose tropical interior, known to its inhabitants as Caspak, home to prehistoric fauna of all eras. Cultures, worlds and time collide in this engrossing fantasy.

Anne and Gilbert begin their life together in Anne's House of Dreams, a continuation of the story that began with Anne of Green Gables. First published in 1917, the L. M. Montgomery series continues with Anne as a new bride making new friends wherever she finds them. They settle on the seashore at Four Winds Point, an area near the village of Glen St. Mary on Prince Edward Island, Canada. She is befriended by the capable Miss Cornelia Bryant, kindly old sea Captain Jim, and the beautiful, mysterious figure of Mrs. Dick Moore.

Homicide detective Ricardo Pierce suspects that many of the city's missing persons are actually victims of a serial killer. When Pierce goes on a quest to find the killer, he discovers not one, but two monsters stalking the night. Pierce is the right man to stop them, however, the detective has his own demons that he struggles against. Will Pierce stop the night predators that threaten the city or will he ultimately become one himself?